by LORRAINE CARPENTER

With a sound as hard to confine as it is hard to define, local art-rockers Icenine are driving blind and loving it. These McGill grads lifted their moniker from Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, in which “icenine” is a microscopic entity that instantly freezes everything in its wake, a fitting metaphor for an unassuming, no-frills four-piece with a profound sound. Their debut album, Tread, drifts from plodding, raw riffs to restrained, acoustic guitar-driven melodies, always minimal and always elevated by vocalist Sahra Coyle, whose ethereal-to-forceful dynamic lies some shades away from Björk. This, along with the fact that they share drummer Mike Shulha with avant-garde drum & bass & jazz collective Dr. Noh, hints at Icenine’s electronic origins.

“When Sahra, Andreas [Blanchere] and I met Mike, we realized what you can do with an exceptional human drummer as opposed to limited programming skills,” says bassist Dave Madden. “Initially, our common link was a love of drum & bass and trip hop, but we came from completely different places. Mike studied jazz for a number of years, Sahra was into hip hop and soul, and I listened to a lot of rock music. Andreas is our lone American [from NYC—Madden and Shulha are from Kingston, Coyle from Winnipeg], so he grew up with the Grateful Dead and real rootsy music. We’re constantly introducing good music to each other, so the band has become sort of a melting pot.”

“It was weird at first,” says Shulha. “They gave me a CD and it was all pretty fast, programmed beats. I started playing aggressive, drum & bass-style, but, over these two years, more than anything, we’ve just slowed down.”

After removing much of the music’s electronic edge, and writing a song or two on acid, Icenine became identified with prog, despite their lack of theatrical, symphonic riffage. While the band shares prog’s counter-pop approach, they see the root of this comparison in their fusion of electronic influences and a penchant for heaviosity.

“I’ve been a fan of metal my whole lifeand right now it’s pretty much all I’m listening to,” says Shulha, who cites Converge and Burnt by the Sun as favourites. “Our music is certainly emotional for us, writing it, it’s gut-wrenching at times. There’s big fights, lots of drama, and I think that comes across. Personally, that’s what keeps me coming back to certain albums, and that’s one of the things metal accomplishes really well, that emotional intensity. There’s nothing flippant about that sound, you can’t play it half-assed.”

“It’d be great to get some metal fans,” adds Madden, “but they might pull their hair out when they see us pick up an acoustic guitar. Our shows are as quiet as a whisper, as loud as we can possibly be, as fast as we can be, as slow as we can be. We’re gradually discovering our own sound, but it’s a confusing, ongoing process. But, every once in a while, we listen to something we’ve played and say, “Oh, that’s classic Icenine.” :

With Quadraceptor and Erna at the Jupiter Room
on Saturday, Oct. 19, 9:30pm, $5

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